To accompany Richard Harrington: Arctic Photographer, we have organized Perspectives: Collecting Inuit Art, an exhibition that provides a glimpse of the varying tastes of collectors seeking northern art. It includes prints donated by a collector to the RMG permanent collection, as well as the sculptural treasures from the RMG’s vault and from local residents Donald and Patricia Dodds’ and Elsie Tait’s collections.

Two suites of prints from the RMG collection will be exhibited for the first time: a portfolio of twelve by Kenojuak Ashevak and six by Jamasie Teevee. Kenojuak was born on the southern coast of Baffin Island in 1927 where, from an early age, she produced traditional dolls and beaded sealskin work. She was one of the first Inuit women to begin drawing at Cape Dorset (now more often referred to as Kinngait) after James Houston introduced print-making to the area in the 1950s. Her strong forms with vibrant colours come, as she says, “out of my thoughts and out of my imagination.”

The six prints by Jamasie Teevee, who was born in the Kimmirut area in 1910, depict life in traditional Inuit camps—stylistic renderings of Inuit beside summer encampments; dogsleds on the move and colourfully clothed young hunters. These stonecuts are based on personal experience of living on the land.

While printmaking techniques were introduced through Houston, carving among the Inuit has a rich history of over 4000 years and includes objects of both aesthetic and spiritual importance. In the later part of the twentieth century, with southern market demand for work by Inuit artists, the use of material began to expand from the more usual whale tusk to soapstone, argillite and serpentinite. The exhibition includes examples of early, small ivory carvings that the Hudson Bay Company purchased directly from the carvers and later work done in soapstone—at times larger sculpture that was a response to the tastes of the southern market. Artists include Tivi Ilisituk, Cain Irqqarqsaq, Moses Pov, Kenojuak Pudlat, and Timothy.

Richard Harrington was born in 1911 in Hamburg, Germany. He immigrated to Canada in the mid 1920’s, and went on to become one of our most respected photographers. His career led him to over 100 countries, and more than 2400 of his photographic stories were published in numerous magazines and books.

In 1947 Harrington made a trip to Inukjuak in the eastern Arctic, and his desire to see the far north was stirred. Over the next decade, he made five additional trips north and his resulting photographs now form a historical record of a vanishing way of life, as the Inuit people were soon to abandon their nomadic lifestyle to settle into permanent camps.

This exhibition features photographs from several of these trips. Complimenting them, are a number of sculptures from the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s impressive Inuit art collection that reference Harrington’s last trip to the Arctic in 1959. During that trip, he visited the Nunavik settlement of Puvirnituq to document carving techniques, particularly those of Charlie Sivuarapik, whose work had become well-known in the late 1950s. Harrington’s photos of the carver were used in an article for Canadian Geographic Journal in 1960. The sculpture Inuit Hunter with Caribou and Dog shown in several photographs is included in this exhibition.

Presenting photography by a non-Inuit artist and carvings by an Inuit artist together provides a new context for visitors to view these historical records of a time and place that has profoundly changed in the last 50 years.

German philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote that “ownership is the most intimate relationship one can have to objects: not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them.” The second in a series of exhibitions featuring works from local collectors, this exhibition highlights one aspect of Toronto and Prince Edward County-based collector Terri Lipman’s collection: women artists. Her collection consists of furniture, artefacts, paintings, sculpture, drawings, and fibre works but in particular, the RMG shares her interest in the work of Canadian women artists.

As a child Lipman made regular trips with her mother to art galleries and antique shops and her parent’s home was filled with Canadian art, modern Scandinavian design and mid-century pottery. Ranging from work by mid 20th century and contemporary Canadian women artists to anonymous folk and design work, Lipman’s interest in “hand works” has obviously steered her own collection. Through collecting, she has formed wonderful relationships not only with the artwork, but with the artists, as well.

While the work in this exhibition is diverse, what conjoins them for Lipman are impressions where reality is tinged with reverie, stories intimated, lessons learned and all conveyed thoughtfully through a myriad of materials. As much as the artworks, Lipman is interested in the journey of collecting: where it began; where it is today; and where it is going.

The exhibition includes work by Pegi Nicol Macleod, Jori Smith, Mary Wrinch, Heather Goodchild, Lisa Diquinzio, Shary Boyle, and Naomi Yasui among others.

Photography allows a moment in time to be captured and maintained long after it has passed. Candid images rely on spontaneity—when a subject is unaware, or are in mid-action.

French photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson who coined the term “The Decisive Moment” said: “To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.”

This exhibition presents candid moments captured on film depicting Oshawa’s past residents. They are not contrived, posed, or formal portraits but instead capture the spirit of a moment or event.

Vessna Perunovich was born and raised in a state that no longer exists. Although she has departed from ex-Yugoslavia more than 20 years ago, the theme of exile and longing are still being echoed in most of her work. From the time she started her career in Canada in 1988 until today, she has worked in a diverse range of media, including painting, drawing, installation, sculpture, video and performance. Neither Here Nor There is the first survey exhibition of her video works, presenting artwork realized in the last seven years of her practice.

The installation Neither Here Nor There is a collection of eight video works in which Perunovich plays with her own position in the border space of her identity. Exploring the notion of place and its complex and contradicting nature to both entice and alienate, Peruovich situates herself in relationship to environments, both real and imagined. A Toronto-based visual artist, Perunovich has exhibited at numerous international biennales in Cuba, Albania, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece.

 

Vessna Perunovich is a Toronto-based, internationally acclaimed interdisciplinary artist who works in a variety of media including sculpture, painting, drawing, video, installation, and performance. Born in 1960 in Serbia, she earned both her Bachelor of Fine Arts (1984) and her Master of Fine Arts (1987) at the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia. She immigrated to Canada in 1988.

Perunovich has exhibited at International biennials in Cuba, Albania, England, Portugal, Yugoslavia, and Greece as well as across Canada. She has attended residencies in Berlin, New York, Banff, Bursa (Turkey), and Mileseva (Serbia). Her survey exhibitions Borderless and Emblems of Enigma toured prestigious galleries and museums across Canada and Europe. Her work has been reviewed in numerous magazines and periodicals, including Canadian Art, Espace Sculpture, World Sculpture Magazine, Umelec, and Border Crossings among others. Perunovich is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Toronto Friends of Visual Arts (2005), Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council Grants and Chalmers Development Grant. Her work is included in many public and private collections, and is the subject of two monographs: (W)hole, 2004 and Emblems of the Enigma, 2008.

Perunovich is a sessional teacher at the Ontario College of Art and Design and she has lectured at various schools and Universities including the University of Guelph, Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Faculty of Arts and Letters in Havana, Cuba and others. She is an Artistic Director for the Toronto Arts & Fashion Festival [FAT]. Vessna Perunovich is represented by Angell Gallery.

Automotive design began as a simple evolution from the horse and carriage; initially a form and function proposition, design started to change as a result of the 1925 Art Deco fair in Paris. The importance of style took hold in the consciousness of the buying public, and by the 1940’s, the significance of sophisticated design in the manufacture of a car became paramount.

The evolution slowed during war times, as manufacturing focus was placed on military efforts. Many design staff were called up to service; a Cadillac plant in Detroit began turning out tanks less than eight weeks after the last 1942 model car came off the line. In the years following World War II, the American Dream took shape. A vision of prosperity emerged, one that included the perfect family, a modern home, and the ownership of a vehicle. This was the new American way of life; it presented an opportunity, and a thirsty market, for automotive manufacturers. The market was more sophisticated, World of Tomorrow exhibits at the 1939 World’s Fair were influential, and science fiction magazines and comics boomed in sales. The future was nothing short of an obsession, and the styling of rockets, bombs, and twin-tail airplanes dominated popular culture.

When war ended in Europe, manufacturers reactivated their design studios. The influence of a war era, a glimpse to the future, and a desire for sophisticated design permeated and in-house designers turned out illustrations as artistic as they were functional. The illustrations in the exhibition Future Retro, organized by Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, are sourced from this golden age of automotive design. The illustrations and design proposals included in this exhibition present a vision of the future, rooted firmly in an era past.

 

In 1985, the RMG was given over fifty prints by Laurence Hyde from the estate of his teacher, Charles Goldhamer, who had amassed an impressive collection of Hyde’s work, including the only known copy of the Seven Ages of Man series.

Born in England in 1914, Hyde came to Canada at the age of twelve. Two early encounters were of particular importance to his career: in 1928, he saw Lawren Harris’ paintings at the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the AGO), and in 1932 he met the artist Thoreau Macdonald. These experiences led Hyde to Toronto’s Central Technical School where he took classes under Goldhamer, Robert Ross, and Carl Schaefer.

During his career, Hyde would primarily produce wood engravings, a method that uses hardwood blocks, cut across the grain. Because of the hardness of the wood, very fine, precise lines can be achieved and the prints are quite small.

After completing art school, Hyde worked for Golden Dog Press. There he worked on his own engravings, including a series on Macbeth and the unpublished Discovery series. He also produced illustrations as a freelance artist, and in 1942, began working for the National Film Board’s animation department where he worked until his retirement in 1972.

Hyde was able to convey powerful stories through compositions of light and dark imagery within a very small format. Each work has a strong, individual presence that shows the artist’s technical virtuosity and ability to convey emotion through simple imagery.

The Making History: Youth Art & Writing Contest gave young writers and artists creative freedom to express what their community’s history means to them. Youth were asked to submit an art or writing project that was inspired by a photograph in the Thomas Bouckley Collection.

Seven works were chosen to be included in a small exhibition in the Windfield Lounge, appearing next to the relevant photograph from the collection.

Congratulations to the winners Tara Zammit, for the Best Overall Writing prize, and Courtney Dainard, for the Best Overall Art prize.

 

Our modern world is one that is filled with screens. Computers, smart phones, digital advertisements; the world is now perceived through a rectangular frame. How does this experience augment our view of reality? Does it make the two worlds, the virtual, and the real, less separate than they once were? This exhibition is a response to some of those questions.

Simone Jones, a Toronto-based artist and professor at OCAD University, has been investigating the artistic application of robotics and technology for over two decades. An evolving practice, her work started with analog robots made from bits and pieces she could find at surplus stores and now includes CGI (Computer Generated Images) and video installation.

In All That Is Solid, Jones explores spatial contradictions; near and far, surface and depth, illusion and realism. Using photography, film, and CGI, Jones explores how we document, and how our perception of reality can shift through various applications of what we record. In the central work of the exhibition, four screens lean against the wall with images, both black and white and CGI, flowing one into the other. Jones, by conjoining images, is attempting to create a hybrid space—asking the viewer to focus their attention on the nature of the images themselves.

In a related work, Jones produces stereograms—images that allow us to see in three dimensions without the use of external visual aids. Alongside this, a video installation combines illusion and reality, and a dialogue is created between what is real and what is “fake”. However, for the viewer, just one single reality is the result.

Simone Jones’ installation is created specifically for the space at the RMG.

Oshawa’s waterfront has been a heated topic recently, with the placement of an ethanol refinery of particular issue to the city’s residents. It is of some well-timed coincidence that this exhibition looks at the issue of ethanol production. It is, of course, no coincidence at all: corporate intervention in nature is a global issue, internationally, as much as it is in our own backyard.

It isn’t only ethanol that is addressed here, as Prince Edward Island-based artist Gerard Beaulieu has set his sights on technological interventions that the industrial farming system has created. Raw & Cooked looks at the reconfiguration of nature, one that creates super-species, results in low (financial) cost, high-return products, and feeds a growing demand for more-for-less.

In one work, we encounter a field of corn not edible, but instead set for ethanol production. In another we experience a five foot tall rooster, which presents an aesthetic warning about genetic modification. In Drift, we’re forced to see, and process, the debris floating in our oceans (sometimes landing on our shores), through an installation of seventy-two jelly fish.

The work of Gerald Beaulieu is enmeshed in a belief that art should engage the world head-on, making a meaningful contribution for debate. In this exhibition, each work references real ecological issues; the “raw”, or sustainable, natural ecosystem, and the “cooked”, a world transformed to a machine that serves a purely corporate agenda.